Peperoni Pizzeria (Thomson)

Portobello Funghi Pizza

Peperoni Pizzeria, owned by the Les Amis Group, specialises in serving Italian cuisine such as its wood-fired pizzas and traditional pasta. I first patronised Peperoni Pizzeria in 2012 at Hillcrest (Greenwood Avenue). Back then, they had only 3 outlets. Today, they are so successful that they have expanded to 7 outlets with its newest outlet at Thomson! 

Their Thomson outlet opened in 2016 and is located at the end of the row of shophouses where UOB is located at. We visited on a weekday afternoon and was not surprised to see that there were few customers. This was also partly due to the construction works for the upcoming MRT station. When the station is operational, I am sure the area will be bustling with people. 

traditional wood-fired oven

The pizzas are cooked using traditional wood-fired oven. I like the fact that customers are able to see the kitchen and how the food are being cooked. It is visually appealing and provides assurance on not only hygiene, but also the standard of the food.

Peperoni Set Lunch

The Set Lunch, available only during lunch time on Mondays to Fridays, is so value for money considering that it cost $14.90 nett! Moreover, it includes salad and drink. 

We ordered two set lunches. 

Garden Salad, Coke, Sprite

The Garden Salad along with Coke and Sprite.

Amatriciana 

We ordered the Amatriciana pasta; linguine with sauteed Bacon and Onions in Tomato Sauce, which was excellent! The bacon bits provided a savoury flavour while the onions provided a crunchy texture. Also, the taste of the tomato sauce was just right and had the right amount of tangy-ness.

Portobello Funghi Pizza

Being someone who likes mushroom, it should not be a surprise that I ordered this - Portobello Funghi Pizza. It consisted of portobello mushroom, tomato concasse, scallion served with a sunny-side up egg and a dash of truffle oil. The wood-fire pizza's crust was thin and crisp, and it was delicious!

I quite like the food at Peperoni Pizzeria. Moreover, in terms of cost, the price is NETT which means that there is no service charge! 

Peperoni Pizzeria (Thomson)

267 Upper Thomson Road

Singapore 574394

Tel: 6509 1575

Opening Hours: Mon to Sat 12pm - 11pm 

                           Sun 11am - 11pm 

                           Closed on certain PH

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Skinny Pizza (Plaza Singapura)

The English Breakfast Pizza $24

Skinny Pizza is a restaurant chain specialising in thin crust pizza. Owned by the Spa Espirt Group, it first started in 2008 and currently has a total of 5 outlets in Singapore.

There was a short queue when we visited its outlet at Plaza Singapura on a Friday evening.  

We ordered 3 sides since doing so would cost just $18. We ordered the Truffle Fries, Grilled Prawns with Cauliflower Couscous and 1/4 Metre Pork Sausage.

Truffle Fries $9 (a la carte price)

For the first side, we chose the Truffle Fries $9. As it name suggests, it was essentially fries with salt and truffle oil. It arrived piping hot and crisp. With a hint of truffle on every single piece of fries, this was so irresistible. This is something that I will always order when I am at Skinny Pizza. 

Grilled Prawns with Cauliflower Couscous $9 (a la carte price)

For the second side, we ordered the Grilled Prawns with Cauliflower Couscous $9. The cauliflower couscous; fine shredded cauliflower was good. Wish that they had given more of it. Other than that the rest of the items were a let down.

1/4 Metre Pork Sausage $8 (a la carte price)

As for the 3rd side, we chose the 1/4 Metre Pork Sausage $8. It was served on top of a bed of rocket salad. We all agreed that this was the worst side. The pork sausage tasted weird and was too salty. Luckily for me, I love rocket salad and ate the sausage along with it to mask the taste. 

Squid Ink Pizza $29

Squid Ink Pizza $29 is another dish that I always order whenever I am at Skinny Pizza. This is my favourite and is probably the best pizza at Skinny Pizza! A must order!

It consist of prawns, squids, tomato salsa, onion, rocket salad, basil and parsley on squid ink crust (hence the crust is black in colour!). Grilled to perfection, this pizza tasted way better than it looks! The thin, crispy pizza base; a specialty of Skinny Pizza was executed perfectly! With its fresh ingredients, this tasted so good that I stopped the efficient waiter who wanted to clear the pan away as I had yet to scrap off whatever ingredients still left on the pan.

The English Breakfast Pizza $24 was a pizza with bacon, sunny side egg, roasted tomato, mushroom, rocket salad, basil and parsley. The crust was again thin and crispy. As the waiter cuts the pizza into serving slices, watch the egg yolk ooze out. A word of caution would be to eat this as soon as possible. This is because the egg yolk would soft the crust and make it soggy. Otherwise, this pizza also tasted quite good. 

Overall, the pizzas at Skinny Pizza was very well executed. As for the sides, if I had a choice, I would order all 3 sides as Truffle Fries (not sure if they allowed). 

Skinny Pizza (Plaza Singapura)

#03-79/83 Plaza Singapura

68 Orchard Rd

Singapore 238839

Tel: 6884 8381

Opening Hours: Daily 11am to 10pm

Website


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Other branches
Skinny Pizza (100AM)
#01-03/04
100 Tras Street
Singapore 079027
Tel: 6444 2136

Skinny Pizza (Raffles City)
#B1-63/64 Raffles City
252 North Bridge Road
Singapore 179103
Tel: 6333 5069

Skinny Pizza (Westgate)
#01-03 Westgate
3 Gateway Link
Singapore 608532

Liang Court Wednesdays' Food Tasting Trails: Tamoya, Shakey's Pizza and Dulcet & Studio

Continue on with my previous post on Liang Court Wednesdays' Food Tasting Trails, I made 2 trips down to Liang Court on the last day of the food trail for both lunch and dinner. 

Tamoya Udon

For lunch, I visited Tamoya Udon which is a Japanese restaurant that specialises in handmade Udon.

Tamoya Udon

With the Liang Court's Wednesdays' Food Trail Coupon, I was able to try the large Curry Udon (U.P $10.80) with Prawn Tempura (U.P $2.50), Fried Chicken (U.P $1.50) and Chikuwa Tempura (U.P $1). 

Curry Udon

The Curry Udon was delicious. The Udon handmade using three types of flour was the highlight. It was chewy yet soft and smooth. The curry with lots of onions added to it complemented the udon well. 

Prawn Tempura, Chikuwa Tempura and Fried Chicken

The Fried Chicken was decent, while the Prawn and Chikuwa Tempura were disappointing. Both the tempura were cold, hard and no longer crisp. They were also coated with too much batter.

For dinner, the Partner and I went for Shakey's Pizza.

The Liang Court's Wednesdays' Food Trail Coupon provided us with several choices:
(a) Slim Trim Caesar Salad (U.P $5) and Spaghetti Carbonara (U.P $13.80)
(b) Shakey's Baby Back Ribs (Full Slab) (U.P $19.80)
(c) Oishi Wasabi Premium Pizza (90-inch) (U.P $19.80) or;
     Hula Hawaiian Classic Pizza (9-inch)(U.P $18.80)

We went for option (a) and (c). 

Slim Trim Caesar Salad and Spaghetti Carbonara

We ordered the Slim Trim Caesar Salad and Spaghetti Carbonara.

Slim Trim Caesar Salad 

The Slim Trim Caesar Salad consisted of lettuce, egg, parmesan cheese, bacon bits and garlic bread was quite good. Considering the fact that we seldom take salad, we finish this entire dish!

Spaghetti Carbonara

The Spaghetti Carbonara served with bacon and mushrooms with creamy egg sauce may not be the best, but it as certainly quite decently executed.

Oishi Wasabi Premium Pizza 

As we wanted to try something different we decided to order Oishi Wasabi Premium Pizza which consisted of shrimps, scallops, pineapples and wasabi sauce topped with lots of bonito flakes. Surprisingly, the wasabi sauce did not overwhelm the taste and complemented this dish well. We both felt that the shrimps and scallops did not match up to this pizza. Both ingredients were not exactly fresh. What a waste.

Dulcet & Studio

After dinner we walked round the shopping centre and also visited Mediya, the Japanese supermarket while waiting for our food to digest. Before, we headed back home, we stopped over at Dulcet & Studio for its cakes.

The food trail coupon enabled us to order two pieces of cakes and also a cup of regular coffee. As we visited at close to 9pm, most of the more popular cakes had already been sold out. We were just left with three choices. =(

We chose the Rose Chiffon Cake (U.P. $7) and Macha Marble Chiffon Cake (U.P. $4)  with a cup of regular coffee.

Macha Marble Chiffon Cake

The Macha Marble Chiffon Cake was just average. It was soft and fluffy but too dry.  The macha flavour could have been stronger.

Rose Chiffon Cake

The Rose Chiffon Cake fared better. It was soft, fluffy and had a stronger rose fragrant.

The coffee was a huge disappointment. We took just two sips and left it untouched.

That's all for the Liang Court Wednesdays' Food Tasting Trails. I wonder if they will hold this again next year. It's so value for money!

Liang Court Wednesdays' Food Tasting Trails: Tamoya, Shakey's Pizza and Dulcet & Studio
Liang Court, 177 River Valley Road
Singapore 179030
Website
Facebook

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Cafe Italia Express at Dubai Mall (UAE, Dubai)

A visit to Dubai is not complete without a trip to the famous Dubai Mall which is the largest shopping mall in the world! Located in the heart of Downtown Dubai, it has a total internal floor area of 5.9 million square feet (50 football fields) with over 1200 shops of which 120 are restaurants and cafes, 95 elevators and 150 escalators! There's even Laduree and Galeries Lafayette. In addition, there's a five star hotel, Olympic-size Ice Rink, Oasis Fountain Waterfall, WaterFront Atrium, 22-screen Cinema, SEGA Republic (indoor theme park), Dubai Aquarium and Under Water Zoo in the mall! The locals have said that if you really want to explore and shop here, you would required 3 days to explore the mall. 

Clockwise from bottom left: Dubai Directory, Oasis Fountain Waterfall, different themes of the mall.

We got lost several times in the mall as it was huge and were so tired that we had to sit down to rest. The mall had many Concierge counters to help direct tourist and locals. 

Ok, back to the food. The prices at Dubai Mall seemed to be steeper compared to Deira City Centre mall. If only we had changed more Dirhams. We walked around and in the end settled our dinner in a food court as we all wanted to try different cuisines. The food court was huge with many different cuisines. There were fast food (e.g. Mc Donald's, Burger King, KFC), a restaurant and even a kids playground in the food court! 

I walked one round around the food court before deciding to settle for Italian food at Cafe Italia Express. Cafe Italia Express was the first to introduce traditional Neapolitan pizza in the gulf region. It first started making its presence felt in Bahrain in 2000. As the name suggests, Cafe Italia Express specialises in Italian cuisines such as pizza and pasta. The pizzas are baked in ovens that are fueled by wood. 

I ordered the Pizza Barbecue Combo 35 AED (S$11.97). After ordering, the chef went about his task of preparing a pizza. 

buzz

As the pizza had to be prepared and baked, issued a buzz that would activate (shake) to inform customers that their orders were ready. First time seeing a razor shaped buzzer. The more common ones I had seen in Singapore were round shaped like a land mine. 

Pizza Barbecue Combo 35 AED (S$11.97)

The Pizza Barbecue Combo 35 AED (S$11.97) consisted of a 10 Inch BBQ Chicken Pizza, choice of Soup or Salad and a Soft Drink. 

Minestrone

Minestrone

For soup, I chose Minestrone. Although there were lots of small chunks of vegetables in it, the soup was a tad too sour for me. 

BBQ Chicken Pizza

The BBQ Chicken Pizza was just average. Thin crisp crust with chicken, onion, BBQ sauce, cilantro and mozzarella. At 35 AED, this was relatively cheap. 

Dubai Fountain

A must do when visiting the Dubai Mall is to watch the Dubai Fountain performance. It is the world largest dancing fountain. The fountain is 275 metres long and can shoot water jets up as high as 150 metres (50 storey high). With Burj Khalifal at its background, the performance was captivating! You can watch the show at half hour intervals from 6pm to 11pm from Sun to Wed and 6pm to 1130pm from Thu to Sat. The fountain is located just outside the Dubai Mall on Lower Ground Waterfront Promenade. 

Cafe Italia Express (UAE, Dubai)  

D-5, Level 2, Food Court Area

Dubai Mall

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Tel: 04 3253629

Opening Hours: 11am to 11pm
Location

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La Birreria, Piazza del Campo and Siena Cathedral (Italy, Siena)

Piazza del Campo

La Birreria is a restaurant located at the edge of Palio di Siena in Piazza del Campo. There are many different restaurants along the entire circumference of Palio di Siena as is a tourist attraction. In the past,  it was the site of public events and races such as bullfights, jousting and boxing. This was also the place where the James Bond Quantum of Solace's horse scene was filmed (do you remember?). Today, this site is used for many different events throughout the year. The most notable event is the prestige horse race which is held twice a year on 2 July and 16 August. As we visited during December, the event that was held at the centre of Palio di Siena was a Christmas market (yet again)!

The restaurant was unique, it had a big sitting capacity (indoors and alfresco dining). Inside the restaurant, we were surprised that it part of it was in the basement. As you can see from the photo, the inner part of the restaurant like a basement dungeon! The picture shows the 2nd 'basement room'. Each 'basement room' was  a few steps 'deeper'. We sat at the third 'basement room'. How cool is that! There was no windows and it was just brick walls and arches; real solid bricks, not fake wall or wallpaper. Moreover, there were several TV screens showing the sports (soccer) channel. I am sure it gets crowded when there is a soccer match! 

Part of the wall was decorated with photos of the prestige horse race that the locals look forward to. The quiet and unique environment of the restaurant made me felt as if I had taken a time machine back to the  ancient days. Now where's my sword and amour? It felt good to be away from our fast paced life in Singapore.

The menu was impressive; it came with five languages! There was German, French, Spanish and English! As for the fifth language, I could not even understand some of the characters as they looked like alien language to me! Its a norm in Europe to have their menu in different languages.

Vegetable soup with bread 7.50€ (S$11.75)

We ordered the "Ribollita alla sense" which in English was translated as "Vegetable Soup with Bread" on the the menu. It cost 7.50€ (S$11.75). Although the price was on the high end, we decided to order a bowl of soup to share to 'defrost' our cold bodies in the cold winter.

Imagine our shock when the Vegetable Soup with Bread (photo above) was served to us. We even told the waitress that we did not ordered this. She went back to the kitchen to check our order and insisted that this was what we ordered. Because of our language differences (she is fluent in Italian while us in English), we resorted to pointing to the menu to show what we ordered and she told us that Yes, this is the Vegetable Soup with Bread!

Well, we did not have any hot soup to go along with our meal. The Vegetable Soup with Bread was unique. It was moist and lots of 'mashed' bread was added to soak up all the soup. Chunks of carrots, onions, beans and potatoes were mixed among the bread. It was delish and rich in flavour.

When I came back home, I found out that Ribollita is a Tuscan soup made with boiled vegetable and bread (normally stale bread is used). Interesting! 

Pappardelle with Wild Boar 11€ (S$17.23)

For mains, we ordered Pappardelle with Wild Boar which cost 11€ (S$17.23). Pappardelle are large and broad flat pasta noodles. It was hard to compared the wild boar to other meat (e.g. chicken, pork) as it was minced. It tasted like minced pork meat. The pasta with wild boar was delicious though I would have preferred a pasta that was not so wide.

I remember when I was a kid, I ate braised chinese style wild boar meat at a hawker centre. However, now its rare to be able to find such meat at hawker centres (if you know of any, please let me know). You can still get wild boar at western (Italian) restaurants in Singapore.

We also ordered a Prosciutto e Funghi (Pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, ham and mushrooms) which was priced at 8€ (S$12.54) . The Prosciutto e Funghi was freshly made upon order and took more than 20 minutes to prepare. It was fantastic; great Italian pizza! The freshness of the ingredient and execution was perfect! You can pop by into any Italian restaurant and be assured that the quality of their pizzas are top notch! It was a pity that we did not manage to take any photo of the pizza as we were in a rush.

Siena Cathedral (Duomo di Siena)

The Siena Cathedral (Duomo di Siena) located at Piazza del Duomo was a 10 minutes walk from Piazza del Campo. 

La Birreria and Siena Cathedral (Italy, Siena)

Piazza Il Campo 58 

53100 Siena, Italy

Tel: +39 0577 284424

Website

Location

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Peperoni Pizzeria (Hillcrest)

Peperoni Pizzeria is owned by the Les Amis Group. Peperoni Pizzeria specialises in serving Italian cuisine such as pizzas and pasta. They are well known for their family size pizza. Today, there are three outlets in Hillcrest, Binjai Park and Frankel Avenue.

This is my 2nd visit to Peperoni Pizzeria, I visited it's outlet at Hillcrest (Greenwood Avenue) again.It is quite ulu, located a long distance away from the nearest bus stop. The best mode of transport to this place will be by car. However, parking can be a problem during peak hours.

Wood-fired Oven

The pizzas are cooked using traditional wood-fired oven.

Noticed anything abnormal? 

There's crayons on the table! And instead of having table clothes, paper is used. This way, customers can draw on the paper while waiting for their food to be served. 

Noticed some of the drawings being pasted on the wall? 

There's no service charge in Peperoni Pizzeria.

Noticed another abnormality here? (hint look at the cost of ice water and extra ice!)

Well, the ice water and extra ice are actually Free Of Charge (FOC). They are just trying to make a dig about places that charge money for plain water. 

Pizza Menu

Pizza Menu

Ordered a Large (12 inch) Pizza. The pizza is made on the spot upon order and take about 15 minutes to be served. 

Large Pizza (Prosciutto Crudo di Parma & Funghi) $23

Looks appetising? The pizza crust is thin and crispy. This is the second time I ordered the Prosciutto Crudo di Parma which consist of parma ham and rocket salad. The rocket salad complemented the parma ham well and enhanced the flavour of the pizza. Wish that more rocket salad was added. The Funghi pizza consist of mixed mushrooms (button, shitake and porcini). I am a mushroom person, hence found this delicious. But if I was to make a choice, the Prosciutto Crudo di Parma is a must order!

Pasta Menu

Pasta Menu

Besides ordering a pizza? we ordered a pasta too. We ordered Squid Ink pasta as we heard (online) that it was their signature dish. The Squid Ink pasta took around 20 minutes to be served.

Squid Ink Pasta (Spaghetti) $22

The Squid Ink Pasta was well coated in squid ink ensuring a consistent black colour and it was not dry. Moreover, the squid ink was fresh and there was no fishy taste. The squid was well cooked. The Squid Ink Pasta was so delicious that I wish that more serving was given. Certainly a must order!

Overall, Peperoni Pizzeria is the place to come for pizzas and squid ink pasta. Moreover, the prices on it's menu are NETT. Which means there are no extra charges. Despite not having any service charge, the staff  are attentive and observant. I am certain that there will be a third visit for me! If this place was more conveniently located, I would have been a regular here!

Peperoni Pizzeria (Hillcrest)
6 Greenwood Ave
Hillcrest Park
Opening hours: Mon to Sat 12pm - 1030pm
                        Sun 11am - 1030pm
Tel: 6465 6556
Website
Facebook


Peperoni Pizzeria (Binjai Park)
7 Binjai Park
Tel: 6463 7800
Opening Hours: Mon to Fri 12pm - 1030pm
                          Sat to Sunday 1030am - 1030pm


Peperoni Pizzeria (Frankel Avenue)
95 Frankel Avenue
Tel: 6445 5661
Opening Hours: Mon to Sat 12pm- 1030pm
                          Sun 11am - 1030pm

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